Econocom’s CFO and country coordinator sat down with CRN to discuss his priorities in his new role and where he sees future opportunities for the reseller.
Econocom UK recently announced the appointment of its chief financial officer Ben Wylie to the additional role of country coordinator.
The group said in his new role he will coordinate the Technology Management & Financing activities, in synergy with TRAMS.
To hear more about his priorities in this new position, CRN sat down with Wylie to discuss the UK business and its M&A strategy.
He addressed the headwinds the French VAR ,and indeed the industry as a whole, has faced this year, leading to him prioritising the UK's growth as we start to move into 2023.
"Obviously 2022 has been a bit of a difficult year for many reasons across the industry," he conceded.
"But therefore we're now really focusing on the UK and having a bit of a turnaround. For me, the priority is really to get to profitable growth."
"The group announced that they have organic growth of 9.5 per cent, which is obviously really positive.
"We want the UK to be on that trajectory. We're not quite there yet, but we definitely want to be growing and very profitably."
Econocom as a European reseller in the UK
Wylie explained he will achieve this target by growing Econocom's sales team as well as its integration of Trams, which it acquired in July 2021.
However, he made a point to highlight Econocom's European business, admitting he can't take his focus off the region either.
"We have to remember we are an international company, we're a European company and that's absolutely something we need to get better at as well by leveraging the group relationships that we have."
"There's lots of business done across different companies in Europe, and if there is a UK subsidiary, we just need to make sure that we are the preferred partner for UK subsidiaries as well."
Update on Econocom's acquisition of UK service provider Trams
It's been well over a year since Econocom snapped up Trams, which Wylie said the company is already seeing the benefits of.
He explained the acquisition has allowed Econocom to offer its full portfolio and allow the company to go to market with a rounder offering, with Trams bringing its IT services to the table.
"We've got targets to go both ways in terms of the business that we share in terms of the customers."
"So it's great that we can go to Trams customers whereas traditionally they wouldn't have had the finance offering."
"We can now offer that and that's something that appeals to their customers and it's another string to the bow of the offering that we can bring."
Econocom's M&A strategy: Are more buys in the UK on the horizon?
Following its Trams buyout, Econocom snapped up French smartphone and tablet refurb specialist SOFI Group in April this year.
Wylie said that M&A is a key component to Econocom's growth plans, and revealed that sustainability is now a vital factor in these plans.
"Sustainability is absolutely now having an impact in the M&A strategy," he told CRN.
Geographically, Econocom's latest acquisitions have been based in France and Spain, with Wylie adding that it sees Germany and the UK as its "obvious" next steps for M&A growth.
Original publication from CRN